“Hello Rune, why are you calling?” Hearing a familiar voice after weeks and months of being alone always had this effect of vertigo.

“Hi hi, just reporting about my situation cause I just experienced something awesomely terrifying, but first, can you add some intel to what my ether tower is currently sending back? Tell me when you’re ready,” Rune turned his simple and happy social persona on.

“Happy that you’re still alive then, you can go ahead I’m ready,” Olivia answered after a few seconds, she was fast at her job.

“So, the simple data description is that I’m in the middle of the earth, I think about 150 000 kilometers down, there's a wide tunnel that goes straight down from the surface to where I am, the coordinates are the coordinates of the tower but straight up,” he reported.

“Ok, ok, anything else?” she let her words pending, waiting to know if there was a follow-up.

“The only reason I’m here is that I was pursued by a late or peak tier 4 monster, so I don’t know if it’s still around, better safe than sorry, or something like that? That’s all I had to report, oh! I’m going down soon so do you have any idea if being under the ground will cut the ether tower signal?”

“Huhu, let me check, hu, well, looks like you have the same info as me, theoretically it shouldn’t be blocked but if it is then it’s because the environment is interfering, not even a million kilometers of rock should block it so rest assured,” Olivia gave exactly the same thing as what Rune read in the IGS guide.

“That’s all then, thank you Olivia as always,” he decided to cut the call short, he liked hearing other people’s voices after months alone, but not for more than a minute, he was still in the middle of an adventure after all.

“Thanks for reporting Rune, always an easy job with you, I appreciate being your first support, have a good time adventuring in this hole then, bye,” she then proceeded to hang up, leaving Rune to his lonesome.

5 minutes later the ether tower beeped to signal it terminated the scan, prompting Rune to confirm it, and then as he didn’t want to surf the news, he pocketed it again.

“Well, looks like I’m officially a tier 4 now,” making a dumb face, Rune didn’t know what to do now, “Past Rune probably has some answers, I remember writing something about stopping general passive training… Oh right! It was something about doing only awareness division? I think?” He made an even dumber face.

Getting his diary file out on his connected lenses, he got back to the notes he made back when he was vacationing in total leisure, and he found the correct section as he remembered the thought he had back then.

‘By adventuring, my close combat, fighting instinct and energy compression and all their associated slotted masteries will level up at a much greater rate than the rest, ok, that I already tested and tasted so I can confirm that what the guide said was right,’ as he continued to read, the most important part came back to his memory.

‘Yeah, ok, ok, reinforcement is something I have to continue sending energy into as I travel because it’s the only moment I can level it up efficiently, as for grand and fine manipulation, I’ll need to take a break to create my fireworks build, this way I don’t need to worry about training them now, letting me send all my surplus energy to reinforcement training.’

Back then, he decided to make sort of an optimized training schedule from tier 5 onwards, and in a certain way from tier 4, passively training everything was stupid and only lead to the “one level per month” conclusion.

‘Perception control will be under active training as I’ll use it to refine my composite element, so I can stop training it passively. As for momentum manipulation and awareness division… Ouch! I still don’t have an answer…’

Past Rune wasn’t omniscient, so of course, he didn’t have all the answers, he just did the basic thinking, from 6 passive masteries to train he reduced it to 3, reinforcement, awareness division, and momentum manipulation.

‘So I can essentially send all my energy towards reinforcement, I can automate it as I’ve always done, but for the 2 spiritual training… Yup, I don’t see any way to incorporate their training into a build, not even the hazmat suit build I want to make,’ he of course continued to think, reading the guide for some idea but nothing came to his mind apart from the most obvious.

‘At tier 4 it’s still viable to let them be purely passive, but at tier 5 it would be equivalent to 100 years of passive training not even talking about the tier 6, it was 10 years for one level right? Only for the lowest general passive training of course,’ just thinking about that subject was depressing.

‘The hardest to train is awareness division, that’s true, I can’t deny it, but I can’t find any way to ignore momentum training and incorporate it in any of my builds! I’m stuck!’

“Stuck I say! I only reduced my leveling speed from one month per level to 3 weeks for one…” Thinking about it for hours to occupy himself and not having to think more about it in the future, Rune failed, he couldn’t find an answer.

“Well, the only answer for a stupid human like me is to jump…” Head and shoulder slumped in the most depressed posture he could make, he approached the tunnel, the hole.

With the most suppressed grin ever, he got his punchline out, “I want to be a tree in my next life,” and he jumped.

As he felt gravity take him, he added his own by willing his maximum momentum to boost him towards the abyss.

‘Ok, then my reinforcement and then my awareness, easy,’ having remade his training schedule, he just had to follow it despite the massive hole of having 2 spiritual masteries to train at once.

For good measure, he launched some fireworks from time to time to not become too bored.

Because It was a very, very, very long fall…

…

‘Do I see the glass as half-filled or as half-empty? It’s a good question.’

‘And, on that subject, I only have one answer.’

‘It’s not about the glass being half-filled or half-empty, it’s about if you’re filling it or drinking it!’

Upside-down, falling straight towards the unknown, Rune adopted the philosophest pose he could imagine. Some would say it was similar to the thinking man’s pose, but only the form was the same, not the substance.

‘Who I am? You can’t know me, kid, because I’m not a hero. I’m just a good guy, and being part of the good in a world of heroes makes you irrelevant at worst, ignored at best, that’s my situation. And I like it.’

He shivered a bit at that punchline he just came up with, so he engraved it to maybe use it in the future.

‘Hard-work? Yes, of course, it’s necessary, but it’s what’s behind that is more impor-’

His attention was attracted by a completely out-of-place piece of rock in the current layer he should be passing through, and it was a very big-ass layer.

Not only was its color grey, which appeared like a lighthouse considering the dominant rock was close to black, it was also round and smooth, like a river pebble, just a lot bigger, without any connection towards the bottom or the side.

‘-tant… What was I saying? Let’s mark it anyway.’

On an auxiliary app he downloaded just for this fall, he made another mark named “big grey rock”. It wasn’t the perfect answer considering he, or maybe others, will have to recalibrate all the marks he made in the future, but for now, it was enough.

*Ding* Momentum Manipulation reached Tier 4 Level 2

‘Maybe I should have put all my EP into momentum. Coming up with cool punchlines isn’t looking too good right now.’

Not wanting to focus on falling, he didn’t use his strength, he only used all his momentum, which just got another 1% efficiency to its 5 001 basis, making him fall at currently 252 meters per second, completely above the terminal speed he would fall at if he only let the normal gravity take him.

‘The straight cliff is only 40 000 kilometers tall, and I already fell for…’

Looking at the stopwatch which continued to run, also the one he used to make marks in his fall, it indicated 163 hours.

‘60 times 15 000 times 163… Divided by 1 000… 146 700 kilometers. Am I the lowest human of the IGS right now? Better not say that directly, it could be misinterpreted.’

…

10 minutes later.

‘Another big grey rock,’ another mark was added to his stopwatch.

It was already the tenth, prompting Rune to stop thinking about punchlines and more about what was happening.

He didn’t slow down but he did project his perception sphere downward. Unexplainable phenomenons meant Ether Law interferences, so he was completely expecting a new adventure to begin in the next second if he wasn’t careful.

Once his sphere was correctly shaped, he locked it and observed 8 kilometers beneath him.

‘One grey rock, two grey rocks, three grey rocks, lots of grey rocks.’

He put only one mark, which he called “Grey rocks became popular”. At 250 meters per second, he observed in a short lapse of time how more and more “bubbles” of grey rocks, all smooth and spherical, appeared in the previous rock layer.

He could even argue that they were gradually taking over.

Stopping for a moment close to a “bubble” that had been cut off by the tunnel, he took samples but he didn’t observe anything. He was ready to bet that they would taste normal if he did taste them.

‘Let’s take more precautions, with all those bubbles confusing everything, the limit should be blurred, I may miss it if I don’t pay attention.’

Expecting a limit, be it a region transition, a zone border, or even an anomaly border, he carefully changed his awareness disposition to feel everything below him.

Another 10 minutes later, or 150 kilometers, the bubbles of grey rocks were now in majority, and Rune’s perception sphere ultimately saw a plausible “limit”, one from where he only saw grey rocks and the previous darker version completely disappeared.

No shimmering veils or starry portals were there to prove that it was the limit he was searching for, so he adopted the “uselessly-careful-and-indecisive” approach mode.

‘Everything is logical and rational in the Endless, something transformed the dark rock into grey rocks, and this something completely took over from here.’

Another mark added, he punched the side of the tunnel and established a quick camp to put his ether tower, which he then turned on and took 5 minutes to send the scan back to the IGS.

Done with his obligation, he put it back in his pocket dimension and slowly but surely descended.

As he approached this “limit”, he felt more and more alienated, his instinct was sending mixed signals and his body reacted by giving him cold sweats and goosebumps.

“Brrr, what’s this? It’s worse than thinking about eating a tissue,” cringing and shuddering, he softly murmured as he descended and slowed down even more than he already was.

But while his instinct continued sending him weird signals, his body started spasming, the next level of shivering and it was completely uncontrollable.

Rune made sure his health wasn’t decreasing and his armor was ok, but he hesitated even more about going down after this happened.

‘If only a kind mindless monster could appear and help me… By being a compliant test subject,’ irrelevant thoughts started to pop as he didn’t want to go lower than he already was.

‘How much rope do I have?’ Sending his perception inside his pocket dimension, he found the legendary must-have rope and approximately measured its length.

‘200 meters and I have 10… So if I link them correctly, it’s 2 kilometers.’

Measuring the distance between himself and the “limit”, he found something he didn’t like.

‘I still need to go down a few kilometers… Another idea brain?’

On the spot, he made plans for everything including ether currents, but the only thing he came up with was or to be headstrong and overcome his instinct telling him not to go there like a boss, or cut off one of his arms and see what happened when it descended past the limit.

‘Maybe if I create a floating element and an energy balloon, I can let it slowly descend and observe it long enough to determine what the hell is giving me these ultra creeps.’

Not one to go against his instinct for no reason, he finally realized that maybe, his adventure ended before it even began. Now he was facing something he never faced before, it wasn’t an adventure, it was a challenge.

‘Yup, no way I’m descending more than that until I get a complete IGS-approved thesis about this limit.’

Going back up, he didn’t procrastinate and the moment his instinct and body told him it was okay, he created another camp and put the turned on ether tower on it.

Creating the energy balloon was easy, but the element was harder, he had a limit of 5 000 energy equivalent conversion quota, and it didn’t amount to much once accounted for.

‘It should slow down about… The weight of my hand? If I bend my sphere I can project it up to 10-ish kilometers, so I’ll only have 3 to 4 kilometers of below-limit observation…’

Setting everything up, he rationalized everything and even prepared a camera to record the experiment. When the time came to cut his hand, or his entire forearm after rectification and adjustment, he felt strangely pleased with being able to do that and only lose about a hundred health.

With his sense of pain deactivated, he only had to use an energy-compressed butcher knife to cut everything, proving to himself that destruction was easier than protection.

‘No, I’m a little skewed here, how could 5 000 cohesion resist nearly 36 000 strength and a cutting edge?’

Once everything was ready, meaning 5 parachuted-hand packages and 5 parachuted-forearm-without-hand packages, he sent the first one and started the record.

“Spooky grey rock limit, parachuted biological matter tests, first hand package launched, distance to objective is around 7 kilometers, speed is… About 3 meters per second, sorry for all the approximations,” reporting everything made him feel fulfilled.

“Two minutes have passed from the start of the experiment, now sending the first forearm package, nothing has changed on the first package.”

“Four minutes from the start… Second hand package…”

“Six minutes from…”

“Twenty minutes from the start, now sending the final fifth forearm package, nothing to observe on the first hand package.”

Underwhelming results could only be made up for if something interesting happened, but even 15 minutes after having sent everything, there were no observations to be made.

“38 minutes from the start, the first package is approaching the limit, not even 100 meters between the two.”

“I think there are only 50 meters to the limit, the hand shows no signs of being affected, I can still feel the dead health inside it, everything is still here and…”

“Wait…”

Looking at the first parachuted hand through his perception sphere, Rune couldn’t help but look at his own left hand.

“My hand… Is shrinking?”

“Yes, I can see it shrinking, it’s not a little shrinking, it’s losing mass and slowing down due to the loss of weight, I don’t detect any loss of health, but I don’t have a specialization allowing me to know what’s happening inside.”

“It just got through the full grey rock limit, my hand… The hand is… Hum…”

Looking confused, he made sure of what he was seeing before reporting.

“The hand is being absorbed by the bone? Yeah, seems right, the flesh and skin are being absorbed with loss of mass involved into the bone, it’s happening really fast.”

The lifeless, emotionless, and descriptive tone used to describe what was akin to a paranormal event didn’t make it appear any less creepy.

“The first package has slowed down from about 3 meters per second to 2 meters per second, I don’t know how heavy the bones should be in a normal hand but I can confidently say everything apart from the bones are gone, but the hand still holds together.”

“I perceive no further change, the bones themselves aren’t being eroded or disintegrated… The second package should be arriving in less than a minute now, I’ll describe the process better this time,” concluding on the first package, he prepared himself mentally for the next one.

There were 10 packages after all.

‘Why did I make so many packages?’

…

“... There’s no change, about 50 meters away from the grey rock limit, biological matters start to be incorporated into bones. I don’t know what would happen for something without bones, or even if bones are necessary for this process to happen. What I am sure of is that all the health contained inside those parts is still here, just…”

Wrapping up the experiment with random thoughts, Rune was still shocked by what he witnessed, his adventurous desires all vanished, he encountered something too far above his pay grade.

Turning towards the camera, with the artificial light brightening up the artificial camp he made, he truly concluded it.

“I’m going to use my ropes to seal this part of the tunnel, then I’ll be going up. Looks like this video will be used if my thought process is right, so all the data I made during my fall should also be available, good luck fellow intelligent beings that I don’t know, and goodbye.”

As he prepared to turn the recording off, he suddenly had a flash of genius.

“Last thing, let me know when it's safe to dive right in, if it’s even possible, as long as I can survive being turned into human bones, then I’m in, also prepare the adequate goodies. I don’t think my eyes will be able to hold connected lenses anymore hehehe,” a good-natured but creepy laugh concluded the recording.

Once the camera was turned off, Rune got the ropes out and flew to the approximate level of the camp he made, and started digging in a circle.

Like a spider, he started to draw up a web to make sure those that came in the future wouldn’t be confused as to where it potentially became dangerous.

‘I think it’s approximately 150 000 kilometers? Plus or minus one or two thousand. So if I go up with only momentum it’s 1 week, and if I use strength-based speed, which is… Yeah, right, 36 000, then it’s 640 meters per second, so around 3 days?’

Thinking about his plan, he tried to optimize what he should do.

‘Now that I don’t have to worry about falling to my death, I can maybe use the time to write my reports? This way I’ll be able to focus on my composite element when I go back.’

With a draft established, he refined it so that everything was optimized.

‘And when I get my expedition report and my fauna and flora report complete, I’ll just switch to strength-based speed and finish climbing… Should I contact Olivia so that she can report everything? Yeah, that’s obviously the right thing to do.’